The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1891. Moral Legislation

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 65, 28 November 1891, Page 2

The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1891. Moral Legislation

. ~» Mabvellotjs Melbourne is going to be " Moral Melbourne." The Legislative Council has passed a Post Office Bill, which is intended to prevent the delivery of letters to, and the issue of money orders in favor of, sweep proprietors. This legislation in the direction of discouraging gambling of a certain kind will have a double result, for while aiding the cause of morality in Melbourne it will strike a blow at the immorality of Sydney. We are glad to know that Melbourne is not only going to be moral itself, but to be the cause of morality in its wicked jival Sydney. But a doubt arises in our mind as to whether this grandmotherly legislation will have the desired effect. There is much cunning in what is known as the " sporting world, " and ifc is to be feared, looking at the thing from a moral point of view, that this new moral enactment will be circumvented in many ways by those evil-disposed persons who will persist in investing their money in so-called "consultations." For example, there may always be remitted to a trustworthy friend in Sydney a bank draft for money to be thus invested, and the secrecy and difficulty will make a double and irresistible temptation to some who would never have dreamt of breaking the law and becoming criminals if this new crime had not been manufactured and placed on the statute books of Victoria. Our New Zealand legislators found out the mistake they made in passing a similar law, abolishing "consultations," and an attempt was made last session to have that law repealed, but owing solely to want of time the repealing Act was not passed, although it was obvious enough that such repeal was desired by the country as well as by a large number of members whose common sense and worldly experience had taught them, that as it was impossible to prevent people from gambling in one shape or another, it would be just as well to keep in their own colony the thousands of pounds which were annually sent over to New South Wales for investment. The legalisation of the totalisator in New Zealand has proved a positive benefit to jockey clubs, while at the same time these machines are now, to all intents and purposes, under the direction of the Government, and in this case it has proved easier to control a vice than to eradicate it. It is not that Victoria loves morality more, but because she loves New South Wales less, that she has shown this excess of zeal. If to either the palm should be given to marvellous Melbourne as regards the spirit of gambling, and their recent legislation is only another instance of seeing the mote in our neighbor's eye while ignorant of the beam in our own.